


crumbling sand castles

by mindyfication



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Demon Dean Winchester, M/M, Priest Sam, Raised Apart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-18
Updated: 2017-06-18
Packaged: 2018-11-15 16:21:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11234682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mindyfication/pseuds/mindyfication
Summary: Sam’s been having the same dream for months. He’s on the beach with his big brother, both of them sun dried with salt caking their skin.





	crumbling sand castles

**Author's Note:**

> for hiatus week 4: sam & wwc: sand castles  
> (i [tumble](https://mindyfication.tumblr.com/))

Sam’s been having the same dream for months. He’s on the beach with his big brother, both of them sun dried with salt caking their skin. The feeling is somewhere between an itch and a tickle, and it doesn’t matter as his big brother builds him another three bucket sand castle. 

“You wanna do the honors this time Sammy?” he asks. 

Sam windmills his arms happily, utter destruction as sand goes everywhere. His brother laughs and Sam laughs too, falls back against the beach. The sky is bright blue, not a cloud in sight, and everything is right with the world. 

His brother begins to say something then, something the dream never quite gets to, and Sam wakes up to church bells instead of roaring waves. For a brief moment, it still feels like a memory more than a dream, that there’s a grounding depth to it.

But then Sam splashes water on his face, shakes his head at himself for such fanciful thoughts. He doesn’t have a brother, and the dream is just a typical dream of another orphan boy.

.

Sam was left on Saint Sebastian’s steps eighteen years ago. A toddler with an envelop containing his first name, no last, an apology to the priests, and a few hundred dollars donation. It didn’t take long for Sam to grow out of spite to being grateful that he has no way of finding his birth parents. He has no family but his fellow priests, no father but God.

It helps keep things straightened out in his head. 

The nightmares started around the same time as the beach dreams, two sides of the same coin. They both strive to test his faith, to drive him from his purpose. But Sam has no need of promised ill-begotten power, no need to see those that abandoned him. It isn’t a coincidence that his parents are never at the beach with them, that it’s only his brother being offered. It’s harder to turn down, harder to wake from. But the older brother isn’t real, just like the yellow-eyed demon isn’t. Really, his imagination needs to calm down.

He’s been working in the garden lately, and goes there this morning as well. While he usually opts to hear confessions, to comfort and guide their flock, lately he’s needed the physical exertion. Only when his muscles ache will his thoughts quiet, will the temptations fade utterly. Sam’s nearly through replanting the tulips, last night’s storm had done more damage than he thought, when Father Brady approaches him. Nearest to Sam’s age at twenty-seven, they became dear friends when Brady joined Saint Sebastian’s after completing his schooling. 

“Skipping out on confessions again Sam? Meg will be beside herself.” 

“I have every faith in Father Matthews,” he says, replanting the last orange tulip. 

“Matthews doesn’t have that je ne sais quoi.” 

“He’s an excellent spiritual adviser,” Sam replies, standing up, pretending not to know what Brady means. Meg’s crush on him was Brady’s favorite thing to rib him about, that the petite blonde might make him rethink his vows. Brady’s smirk is a little too wide, his eyes almost seem black.

“Lunch?” Sam says, blinking away sun spots. 

“Yeah, Jordan is on the stove today. No need to forage in the wild,” Brady jokes, his eyes back to normal. 

After lunch there’s cleaning up and studying the bible and a discussion about free will and Father Josiah’s sermon and sleep and then Sam’s tending the church gardens once more. A shadow falls over him, and Sam doesn’t even look up, kneeling as he trims the white rose bushes. 

“You’re early today Brady.” 

“Sam?” 

He fumbles at the voice, _not Brady_ , putting the clippers down and standing. “Sorry, yes I am Father Sam. I don’t believe we’ve met?” 

Sam doesn’t quite mean the words he’s speaking- the man looks impossibly familiar, yet he’s _sure_ he’d remember that face. 

Green eyes twinkle up at him, “I’m Dean. I’m your brother.” 

Sam wants to object- he doesn’t have a brother, only a figment- but he can only get a single word past stunned lips, “How?” 

Dean scratches the back of his neck, “It’s a long story. Can I buy you a beer- uh, a milkshake?” 

“I’d like that. Let me just tell the others I’ll be out.” 

Sam can hardly believe the green eyed boy is real, that he wasn’t one of the devil’s temptations, that he wasn’t a mere test. He sends a silent thank you up to the heavens, and walks with Dean to the nearest diner. Viggo’s is nearly empty as they arrive between the breakfast and lunch rushes. They take a little table outside, the entire deck all to themselves. 

Dean stirs his coffee-oreo milkshake, meeting his eyes seriously. “I swear, I would have found you sooner if I knew you were alive.” 

“What?” Sam asks, “Why did you think I was dead?”

Dean sighs, licking his long spoon clean. “When you were a baby, there was a fire. Killed Mom. Thing was, it wasn’t an accident and Dad spent his whole life tryin’ to find the bastard that did it.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Sam says, and it might be automatic, but it’s sincere. 

“You were four when the monster found us. I was grabbin’ a soda and the damn thing set our motel room on fire, I couldn’t get you out. It was my fault and I thought-” 

Dean can’t finish the sentence, but Sam doesn’t need him to, reaching across the table to grab his hands. 

“Dean, you were a kid. Not your fault, not even a little bit.” 

Dean’s wry smile doesn’t totally believe him, and Sam’s finding too much comfort in how easy it is to read him- in how well they fit together. 

“Well tell me something about your life alter boy.” Dean says gesturing to his garb, “You always wanna be a priest? Ever rebel?” 

Dean’s wriggling his eyebrows ridiculously, and Sam laughs, lets it go for now. It doesn’t occur to Sam until much later to wonder why Dean started believing he was alive or how he even found him.

.

Dean stays in a nearby motel, comes by the church every day around noon to steal Sam away for lunch. He always says it’s just for lunch anyways, but most days lunch turns into lunch and a drive, both of them laying in empty fields, sometimes talking, sometimes not. It feels like blasphemy the way Sam gets wrapped up in Dean, the way everything else fades away so easy.

The other priests don’t even mind that he’s been slacking off, giving him congratulations instead in his brother finding him. It makes him feel like a little kid again, like that time he smuggled a giant bag of twizzlers into his room and ate every last one. He’s getting away with it. (He isn’t positive what exactly _it_ is, but he knows there’s something not yet definable that he isn’t willing to give up.) 

He doesn’t dream of the beach anymore or of the man with yellow eyes. Instead he dreams of Dean bringing person after person to him- Brady, Meg, Guy, Gerald, Viggo, Trish. Rodger- the whole town it feels like. Each and every one of them with black eyes, and each and every one of them he sends to hell. 

Power races through his veins, wild and unchecked. 

Dean brings him another, the same question as always, “You wanna do the honors this time Sammy?”

And Sam does, can still feel the rush as he wakes. 

.

“Forgive me Father, for I am sin.” 

Sam stopped tending the garden weeks ago, when the nightmares stopped. If he knew Dean would come in, he wouldn’t of. It’s too much, too intense. He isn’t objective like he should be. 

“Dean,” Sam breathes, forcing his eyes resolutely forwards. He swallows, “You are one of God’s children, you do not contain sin but act sinfully.”

Dean’s quiet bark of laughter seeps through the confessional booth, and Sam pushes down the irritation. He’s been spending too much time outside the church lately, he used to have far better control over himself.

“Sorry Sam, I- I haven’t done this in a while.” 

The words soothe and Sam berates himself again, he can do this properly. “It’s okay, tell me what burdens you.” 

Dean exhales hard, “I’ve been having lustful thoughts.” 

It’s a fairly common confession- especially from the younger church-goers- but for the first time, Sam feels his ears burning. He wants to know all sorts of inappropriate things about the thoughts his brother has been having and _oh_ -

“As long as you do not act on them-”

“Oh but brother I want to,” Dean interrupts. “You’ll understand if I tell you, you see there’s this man I recently met. And he’s beautiful inside and out, devoted himself almost completely to God. But you see he’s supposed to be _mine_. And every time I see him, I want to bend him over and fuck the piety right out of him.”

Blood is pounding in his ears, and Sam’s fingers are clutching the bench he sits on, knuckles white. Sam can’t help but turn to the screen, _mistake_ his brain screams, as he sees Dean lick his lips, going in for the kill.

“I wanna desecrate you Sammy.” 

And Sam is lost, realigned in that moment, a single word racing to his lips, “Yes.”


End file.
